You definitely do not need to bathe them and it wouldn’t matter if you did. Permethrin is meant to be a long term treatment (up to 6 weeks) so you spray it on your dog and let it dry days before your hike. Once dry permethrin is safe for humans and even cats. In fact treating your own clothing with permethrin (NOT while wearing them) is a safe and effective way to keep mosquitoes and ticks off you as well. Like dogs, permethrin treated clothes are effective for about 6 weeks (or 6 washes).
When it’s wet you should avoid getting it on bare skin, but once it’s dried it’s inert and you’re completely fine. The instructions say when you spray your dog or your clothes you should use gloves, but it dries pretty quickly. Usually about an hour for my dog (he’s double coated so it just takes a while for the undercoat to dry), but with most of my clothing I’ve sprayed it’s usually 30-60 minutes depending on the fabric.
With all that said, permethrin has long been approved for and used in lice shampoos, so it’s fine even against the skin, it’s just that it doesn’t work once it’s dry on the skin. All studies on permethrin show it to be entirely safe at the concentrations we use it at. It has to bind to fibers, but on skin it will break down quickly and be ineffective. It bonds to fibers really well though and is why it’s a longer term solution lasting weeks versus spraying harsh smelling deet that wears off in hours. For ticks it’s really the best solution.
You definitely do not need to bathe them and it wouldn’t matter if you did. Permethrin is meant to be a long term treatment (up to 6 weeks) so you spray it on your dog and let it dry days before your hike. Once dry permethrin is safe for humans and even cats. In fact treating your own clothing with permethrin (NOT while wearing them) is a safe and effective way to keep mosquitoes and ticks off you as well. Like dogs, permethrin treated clothes are effective for about 6 weeks (or 6 washes).
Oh! I was under the impression that getting it on bare skin was toxic.
When it’s wet you should avoid getting it on bare skin, but once it’s dried it’s inert and you’re completely fine. The instructions say when you spray your dog or your clothes you should use gloves, but it dries pretty quickly. Usually about an hour for my dog (he’s double coated so it just takes a while for the undercoat to dry), but with most of my clothing I’ve sprayed it’s usually 30-60 minutes depending on the fabric.
With all that said, permethrin has long been approved for and used in lice shampoos, so it’s fine even against the skin, it’s just that it doesn’t work once it’s dry on the skin. All studies on permethrin show it to be entirely safe at the concentrations we use it at. It has to bind to fibers, but on skin it will break down quickly and be ineffective. It bonds to fibers really well though and is why it’s a longer term solution lasting weeks versus spraying harsh smelling deet that wears off in hours. For ticks it’s really the best solution.